Comments on the Seventh Generation Blog announcing the departure of Jeffrey Hollender reflected teh tradition of protest from consumers that lacked the depth of educated analysis on a very complex topic.One consumer offered a link to the NAD post and positioned Seventh Generation as a green washer who used false advertising tactics. Mixed in with the post were protest-driven remarks about Seventh Generation adding Walmart to its distribution channels.

Last week, I featured a post that spoke of the end of an era of doing business led by a CSR hero and offered a more balanced overview for any reader from any sector in terms of the evolution of Seventh Generation (and for that matter any CSR company with a heroic founder).

CSR advocacy and protesting is often based on the mixing of "apples and oranges" that should have been give more careful analysis. Recent press suggested that Hollender has been fired and is taking the fall for Seventh Generation distribution through Walmart and other mainstream channels. Others insisted Hollender took the fall for describing Seventh Generation products as "natural" when chemicals are in use.

I offered this viewpoint on the Seventh Generation Blog with this comment:

There is a reality not spoken here that has to do with price points and innovation. It is similar to some of the challenges in the biopharm market today.

Pricepoints for new products is often higher. The LOHAS (Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability) for years had a price point higher than usual retail or discount chains. The market research of the 90's showed that people would go into Whole Foods and spend more on Muir Organic tomatoes before they would go to Walmart. Walmart sold the same product.

It was presumed that the market of LOHAS folks would not go to WalMart.

The economy has changed and consumer profiles have changed. What people spend on anything now has changed. If the expenditure is for a product that is new and not as easy to purchase, they will pay a high price point. Look at what happened to Apple: Apple is now accessible to everyone.

The other issue is health. The new generation of parents are wise, organic and green and select this way of life no matter their politics. They live within their means and not on credit.

Hence the Seventh Generation customer has changed, the market has changed and step by step, practices and markets are emerging that base their purchases more on education of ingredients and less on who the person is behind the brand.

I received an email about my post from Germany pointing out that I did an analysis that was not about CSR martyrdom.

CSR is a buzz in journalism. In life it is a quiet practice that is not about personality. It is about finding a "new normal."

To stay viable and sustainable, Seventh Generation will have to find a "new normal."

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I also have this view regarding chemicals and #safechem practices that is not easily understood by manufacturers, consumers and government. Safe chemical practices implies finding substitutes for chemicals in use. The cost for innovation and research for finding substitutes is often beyond what one company can fund on their own.

In June 2010, I attended the American Sustainable Business Council Meeting on safe chemical practices in Washington DC. Hollender was a panelist where he spoke clearly about his commitment to transparency and the challenges and needs to build a safe chemical practice.

Through his leadership, Jeffrey Hollender has invested in educating people to the needs for a Safer Chemicals practice. I have dedicated four years of time to research on this topic as well that include my investigations of the impact of REACH and Green Chemistry. While Jeffrey and I do not agree on method and approach, at least we are both doing something about the issue.

I am always open to meeting with Jeffrey and Procter and Gamble at the same table to work out our disagreements with other experts presesnt to forge ahead on a new innovative practice with others to work out an approach to safer chemicals that can accelerate change, research and innovation. I

I know that this new method of practice for chemicals is not going to be sparked by new regulations. I also know I cannot depend on businesses alone innovating these practices in a vacuum.

Seventh Generation and Procter and Gamble responded to the claims of greenwash and false advertising that reflects their practice of transparency while they both continue to be change agents who impact the world to build a sustainable economy. Procter and Gamble, like other companies similar in size such as General Electric and Walmart, are altering the way they work, globally influencing changes with their supply chains, global consumer communities and internal practices.

With the departure of Hollender, Seventh Generation as a company faces a door of change where the its future is not clear. Once a new permanent CEO is selected, it may neither achieve nor accelerate a sustainable agenda and grow into a global giant. The world of Safer Chemicals also requires a response different than what has already been authored by GE, Walmart and P&G. I know this with certainty.

In my investigation on how to impact and lead change for Safer Chemicals, I have been digging more deeply into the history of oil spills before BP and thinking through the challenges of supply chains in working with manufacturers to assure Safe Chemicals and replace harmful chemicals. I am learning as much as I can in between all I do. Riki Ott's NOT ONE DROP is becoming my primary resource.

I have been a supporter of chemical-related REACH legislation in the European Union since its inception and have recently come to realize the bureacracy and cost of REACH in addition to how the US-proposed TSCA Reform is not addressing the real issue. The amount of chemical used is not addressing the actual dose of chemical it takes to cause harm.

Recently, I received a copy of Green Chemistry is Good For Business, a letter posted on Forbes.com by Craig S. Criddle, Robert G. Bergman and their colleagues at Stanford and UC Berkeley. Their post validates the concerns I am synthesizing through my own research on Safer Chemical and Non Ionizing Radiation Practices.

Written as a response to California's Bad Chemistry, Dr. Henry I. Miller's post on Forbes.com, the authors state that the California Green Chemistry Initiative is a "proactive regulatory effort" to create a process to "identify chemicals of the greatest concern [and] provide an analysis of safer alternatives."

By contrast, the Forbes blog post from Dr. Miller is written from a narrow view similar to the original post from Aneel Kunarni that sparked the #csrdebate in September. I feel that this post invites a similar debate with representatives who are working in the arena to eliminate harm to human health and environment through chemical toxicity.

Our public health research is always ahead of public opinion and government capability. My belief is that there are many good people working in manufacturing that stay abreast of the current public health research and opinion and the cost of media, promotion and education is exceeding the investment that many good people want to invest in programs of Safer Chemicals.

The Swedish-based non-profit ChemSec.org has become a premier example of a non-monetary incubator that can influence manufacturing and supply chains directly. Funding sources for this kind of venture are sourced through a lot of hard work and energy.

The expense of media, protest, debate, lobbying, drafting and campaign for legislation is costly and the time lines to organize laws out of fear continue to be the dominant drivers for change reported on by the press.

I believe we need to develop new formats of innovation and communities of practice that lead this change. It is not going to come from the tradition of how science, advocacy and business has worked in the past. It is going to invite new forums of communities of practice, like the forum my partners and I are launching for WE Care Global Health.

I have a professional background as a health care program manager, leader and capacity building of change. I have a personal passion for working on a safe chemical practice and defining a new capacity to insure every person's right to the best health possible in a world where one out of two people are likely to encounter chronic illness.

I am one person of millions of men, women and children who lives with a chronic illness due to unsafe use of chemicals. As a former health care program leader and manager, I understand more than most that safe chemical practices may in fact be the one of the best vehicles for reducing health care costs in the United States and any country if a perspective of "do no harm" is integrated into how we live, consume and care for health.

An advocacy approach to attack Seventh Generation or Procter and Gamble will not build the capacity we need in a sustainable economy to build safe chemical practices to "do no harm." We need new methods of building capacity, funding research and resources to manage the use of chemicals and identify chemicals that are hazardous no matter their volume of use. The amount of chemical in use is never the issue; it is the impact of chemicals of any amount that can be hazardous.

Jeffrey Hollender and I do agree on the importance of convening people of different views to a table to work on this issue. I believe this table has to invite representatives from industry, government and the non-profit sector to pull together to do the hard work, rather than simply present what each person is doing to contribute from the perspective of the sector in which they work.

I view there is a need to stop investing in educating politicians and congressional working groups to the need and how to author legislation and invite them to invest resources into community of practices who will seek out the right education on chemicals to find replacement for toxic chemicals or determine "precautionary toxic chemical use."

It is my goal to continue to contribute to build a new forum of "sustainable excellence," that impacts the health of women, children and men battling chronic illness as a result of exposure to chemical, environmental and non ionizing radiation.

While I happen to be a citizen who lives with the impact of this harm on my own health, I am also a former health care program manager, business woman and capacity builder. I have learned to live as best I can with my health challenges while developing the skill and capacity to define the necessary agenda to build "sustainable excellence" for the health and well-being of all global citizens. While this work is challenging on many fronts, it is the only way I know how to make a difference in a confusing world where chaos and protest often obstruct healthy progress.

If Seventh Generation, any company, consumer or politician wants to support this form of capacity building, I welcome any support in which to build this kind of forum of "sustainable excellence."

November 08, 2010

It was a challenge this weekend to try to make sense of what Jeffrey Hollender's departure from Seventh Generation represents. It inspired in me some thinking that was completely unexpected and actually resulted in my completing a draft chapter for my book, Tales of Meaningful Use.

Background for this Post

By the end of the weekend, Bernie Kelly, my partner in Melbourne AU, read the draft and we took some time on Skype to look at the implications of what I wrote in this book chapter to the current stage of our progress to convene the WeCareHealth Community in Australia. As a result of my conversation with Bernie, we decided that the draft chapter as written now is something we wanted to have reviewed by the people who are forming into our global alliance advisory group and our launching partners for our project in Australia.

I shared this draft chapter with numerous people I turn to for advice before the end of the weekend. It became clear that this draft chapter was a valuable piece of work that could leverage a dialogue of relevance for Seventh Generation that I want to give much greater thought to. Bernie Kelly and I have decided to do just that and mapped out a process for the chapter review that we will be acting on beginning next week to incubate our next stage of work and action research with people we trust.

This important question helped me see how the draft book chapter I wrote shed light on Jeffrey Hollender's departure.

1. Can Anyone Replace Jeffrey Hollender?

After I completed my "business analysis" of the implications of the Board's resolve to let go of Jeffrey Hollender, I thought back to two years ago when a very important person in my life, Rabbi Alan Lew, went for a jog at a rabbinical retreat where he was teaching in Baltimore and fell to the ground dead. His heart had finally given out. Alan was a very important person in my life, like Jeffrey Hollender is to many people I know in CSR. I happened to be in San Francisco the day Alan died, where I had lived for 10 years. So I joined his congregation and very sizeable personal network of people for a week to celebrate Alan's life.

A few years before Alan passed away, he had decided, like Jeffrey, to start a transition in his congregation and prepare them for a new congregational leader. Alan's talent and capacity as a human being related to spirituality, social justice and hospice had woven into his life a demand on his time from an international audience that was hard to tend to while tending to the needs of his local congregation in San Francisco where he lived.

The first rabbi hired to replace Alan failed and was fired. A search for a second rabbi took considerable time and I had occasion to talk to to two of the candidates that did not end up with an offer. In the Jewish Community it has been a repeated pattern that when a "beloved rabbi" transitions into retirement or moves on to a respected global role, the rabbi that is hired to replace the "beloved" rabbi lasts less than a year.

I actually know a "beloved rabbi" that was hired away from a congregation in the Southeast US and brought to replace another "beloved rabbi" in Southern California. So after serving one congregation flawlessly for 25 years, this rabbi was rejected by a new congregation in one year.

As I thought of this and Jeffrey Hollender, I was left with the question, can anyone really replace Jeffrey Hollender at Seventh Generation?

2. Was Peter Graham behaving like John Sculley at Apple in 1985?

By Tuesday afternoon, I was completely confused by @janmorgan's remark on Twitter: "Jeffrey Hollender gets the boot." The previous week, Seventh Generation had released its annual CSR report. In that report was a letter from Jeffrey and the CEO that had been selected to replace Jeffrey who had also recently left his post at Seventh Generation. What the heck was Jan Morgan talking about?

As the news of Jeffrey's departure leaked into digital ink on the Web, I found a blog post from @marcgunther on the “sad and shocking news”. This was the first report I could find about the incident that was grounded in some fact and contained a message from the Chairman of the Board, Peter Graham, who described Jeffrey's departure and the current goals of the company. Peter Graham is a friend of Hollender's dating back to childhood. Hollender's wife is also a significant shareholder and board member. One could only imagine the kind of tension this implies.

As I read the detail offered by Marc, this situation reminded me of the episode of change at Apple when John Sculley, Apple's CEO recruited from Pepsi, fired the founder, Steve Jobs. Recently, Sculley apologized to Jobs. It is now 20 years past this episode. It made me wonder: As years pass, what will shape from this episode in the story of Seventh Generation?

I have been a follower of the Apple story back to its founding. I became an even more serious follower when Jeffrey Pfeffer, faculty at Stanford Business School, summarized his analysis of the cost to Apple of hiring Sculley as CEO and Sculley then firing Steve Jobs. Pfeffer’s book, The Human Equation, provided a remarkable analysis of the cost and impact of this change within cycles of ups and downs at Apple.

There had been rumors of a growing tension between Chuck Maniscalco and Jeffrey. Like Sculley, Maniscalco has a Pepsico background as a President of a $10 billion division of Pepsico. This made me wonder if Maniscalco was acting as Sculley did, driving a company with a story and history of leadership and product excellence into the ring of operation dominated by brand and advertising operations?

I did a bit of a check-in and thought about other CEOs pushed out of service, e.g. HP's Marc Hurd, Carly Fiorina and Disney's Michael Eisner, and the rocky times those transitions created for these companies. Then I thought about a CEO who was not managed by his board and stakeholders, who led a very healthy company into decline and near death, Ken Olsen. Ken was founder and CEO of Digital Equipment Corporation.

3. What do these CEO departures have in common?

By week's end, Elaine Cohen’s post in support of Jeffrey offered an emotionally mature view from the position that as an outsider looking in, we may never know the real story. Her post also offered a very human side from the heart that spoke about the Jeffrey's contribution to the world of CSR. Elaine, with a posture of dignified emotional intelligence, expressed her concerns for the implications of this abrupt departure. She summarized her view and what this meant to CSR and Seventh Generation, its future, its performance and its moral, ethical and stand on transparency.

After reading Elaine's post, I ran into a couple I am friendly with at Whole Foods Market on Saturday morning. The two were taking a morning to relax with no plans. They were both exhausted. The previous day, my woman friend had lived through a pink slip session at Genzyme of 100 layoffs. Her life-partner told me they were were both vegging and he was going to cook and pamper her the entire weekend.

My woman friend currently works in a company that is going through the stress of change. If you read reports about Genzyme in the paper, the problems with the bad performance of the CEO, Henri Temeer, and the harm to Genzyme's reputation and performance have been spiralling since 2009. The Board went through a period of tension without being aligned, and now in light of the Sanofi bid to purchase Genzyme the board is aligned on one thing and one thing alone: The estimated share value of $89.00 they want from the sale of the company.

By the time I got home, I thought: Seventh Generation is not for sale like Genzyme, it is not being acquired, it is positioned for growth, its products continue to be relevant more than before. But the Founding CEO, the Board members and a short-term CEO, now candidate for the next generation of leadership, are all at odds and brought Seventh Generation into a transition grounded in a form of conflict—and that can result in harm.

4. What about the people?

Whatever I think of Jeffrey Hollender, Peter Graham or anyone in their networks of outreach, at this time, I am left with the same question Elaine and Aman asked at the end of the BSR conference: What about the people?

As a person more mature in years and age with a history of experience in the generation of CSR and Sustainability as a global practice, I have lots of opinions, stories and more. Some of them are now in my new book chapter.

In writing my book chapter, I concluded, as I often do with any project I work on: How has the leader I am writing about altered the lives of the people this person worked with, and what does his absence imply to these people?

My first answer is this. My hope and prayer for Seventh Generation is that the many competent people who served with Jeffrey to build Seventh Generation as a company of "sustainable excellence" do not have to suffer from a rocky transition that harms their capacity and ability to continue to work wisely to sustain personally, for their families and communities of residence.

In my own career experience that drew me to help contribute to the formation of sustainability and CSR as a practice, I simply have seen too much harm to the hard-working people. I hope 10 years from now, I won't be writing a case study similar to what Jeffrey Pfeffer wrote about Apple in his book The Human Equation.

Just as I am a follower of the Story of Seventh Generation, I have been a follower of the Apple story back to its founding. I became an even more serious follower when Jeffrey Pfeffer, faculty at Stanford Business School, summarized his analysis of the cost to Apple of hiring Sculley as CEO and Sculley then firing Steve Jobs. Pfeffer’s book, The Human Equation provided a remarkable analysis of the cost and impact of this change within cycles of ups and downs at Apple.

In my experience it is simply difficult for the "good people," who represent all the stakeholder groups that surround a company, to maintain and leverage from the good work they do in an environment of conflict where there has been an abrupt leadership change as a result of conflict within the board or with potential investors carving out a new stage of business for a company.

5. Serving and sustaining the future.

While I don't always agree with Jeffrey and his approaches within his closest network of colleagues, Jeffrey and I are aligned on the one thing that brought me to CSR in 1993 and led me to form WorkEcology Thought Leadership.

Like Jeffrey, I became committed to creating organization, business and economic forums that would serve seven generations forward. I wanted this personally to move beyond the harm my daughter and I experienced with millions of others from the abrupt changes imposed on us in Massachusetts during Digital Equipments's late 80's decline, followed by a very harmful recession cycle in Silicon Valley in the early 1990's. This harm imposed on millions in both California and Massachusetts became the dress rehearsal for the global chaos of 2008 and the worst two economic years in the United States, worse than the Great Depression.

The reign of a founder is often challenged when it is time to steer a course that is new and different. Only the passage of time will help the CSR world understand what the change in leadership at Seventh Generation implies, and if Peter Graham will be apologizing to Jeffrey Hollender 20 years from now.

Perhaps both men will find a new form of friendship, or both come to recognize they are both setting out to engage a new form of learning that is not based on Seventh Generation's success of the past. Any company, no matter how innovative, has to face change. This rings true for Seventh Generation and all the people associated with the company. A strategic framework will have to be shaped for all people working with Seventh Generation to allow them to work wisely, live well and sustain.

June 17, 2010

My heart immediately sank deep into an experience of sorrow. When I get that way, I let my fingers walk through Google to clarify what I am feeling with facts. I found a few websites of facts on the implications of this health hazard.

3. Then I read this information on the Impact of Benzene on Leukemia and Lymphoma provided by a law firm, BarronBudd.com. This research summarized in this site on how Benzene as a hazard and exposure can lead to Leukemia and Lymphoma.

After reading this, my mother's voice went off in my head; the message she use to give me when she was angry and had to "tell me I told you so."

I found this cartoon from Huffington Post that contained a picture that replaces the thousands of words communicated in media every day that could force me to forget and bury my head in the sand re: this hazard that is going to impact the health of people living by the #BP #Oil Spill.

I chose empathy today and I chose to be awake and not deny this problem. Is there anyone out there that cares to join me.

It has gotten very simple for me. At present, there is a lot of attention on legislation for chemicals to make sure we assure safety for people and exercise precaution related to the 80,000 chemicals now used in products on the market. The legislation often implies we have to make priority the chemicals based on their volume of use.

Science now tells us that the amount of chemicals (volume used) does not dictate the impact of a chemical even in a small amount. Therefore substitution of chemicals of immediate concern has to have a new approach of examining the chemical, the amount of chemical and hazard potential.

ChemSec.org is an educational center in Europe that exists as a non profit for the purpose of creating a "toxic free world."

At their website, ChemSec describes the focus of their work as

"CHEMSEC - for a toxic free world

" Our focus is to highlight the risks of hazardous substances and influence and speed up legislative processes. We act as a catalyst for open dialogue between authorities, business and NGOs and collaborate with companies committed to taking the lead. All of our work is geared to stimulating public debate and action on the necessary steps towards a toxic free world. "

This week, I have had to deepen my empathy for the millions of people who have lives challenged by chemical exposure.

There are currently two reports in my collection that can open anyone's eyes to the opportunity represented by the BP Oil Spill Catastrophe.

June 13, 2010

Today, I sought some quiet to begin to imagine the world without BP. In my life-time and through my work, I have had opportunity to think in this way. The last time was when I began to imagine life without Digital Equipment Corporation.

Since the BP Oil Spill occurred, I have been reading and listening to news reports portraying the views of reporters, leaders and analysts that I respect. One such leader and analyst is Simon Thomas, founder of Trucost.com. Simon has turned his personal mission to build sustainable investment analytics and metrics by building a highly skilled and innovative network of people he has by founding Trucost.com. Simon's blog post this week provided context and relevance to what I have been synthesizing in my own mind since the beginning of the BP Oil spill.

"Since I founded over a decade ago I have often feared that it would take an environmental disaster for capital markets and society in general to start taking the environmental impacts of companies seriously.

In the same way that the Enron and Parmalat crises catapulted corporate governance into the mainstream investment agenda, so the BP oil spill is likely to change investment behaviour forever.

The Deepwater Horizon crisis is of course the result of a terrible accident and terrible accidents are impossible to predict reliably. Research providers struggle as much as anyone else in predicting such events; they are not clairvoyants.

Clearly the extent of the environmental impacts that are associated with the oil industry are well known, despite the concerted attempts of oil company public relations executives to paint an entirely more benign."

that the event was generating in his opinion" a lot of words to describe an event that is, at heart, about ... living within our means, understanding that we are interdependent and getting the accounting right."

I began to take note of a swarm that has grown around me over past few weeks in various leaving me an ache inside my gut that is loudly shouting that "we can no longer afford more of the same." This voice has echoed loudly numerous times through my life.

To get to the point of thinking about life after BP, I remembered a number of devastating catastrophe's that I have experienced or witnessed. I was born and currently live in Boston. People from Boston are very stoic. The experience of catastrophe or devastation to the New England economy is not new to most born here. There are very reminders of my numerous experiences with catastrophes with polio epidemics, hurricanes, recessions, fuel shortages and wide spread shut down due to a domino effect of lost industry. New England has a rich history in its experience of economic harm suffered from lost manufacturing, challenges to the fishing industry, lost defense contracts and the Harvard Community's HMO put into state receivership.

I remember in 1986, the explosion of the Space Shuttle, Challenger explosion took the lives of 7 astronauts

Americans had to own that their perfect space program could make mistakes and the magnitude of a mistake could take the lives of people.

Shortly after that experience, I found myself working and living in a community of people employed directly by Digital Equipment Corporation or within DEC's supply chain. Ken Olsen as CEO could not see that the personal computing revolution was going to overtake his obstinate view that DEC mini computers would dominate the market. This resulted in a loss of business that reduced a global workforce from 160,000 workers globally to approximately 35,000 workers who were absorbed into a Compaq acquisition followed by the 1990's HP acquisition of Compaq.

I lived in the Bay Area during the next two recessions and watched more Fortune 2000 companies disappear, e.g. Amdhal. By the end of 1993, I had seen the impact of pervasive downsizing of 800,000 workers in California destroy communities, make families homeless and strip children of any hope for a future.

Around 1994, while living in Cupertino, CA, (home of Apple.com) during one of my numerous episodes of layoff, I participated as a volunteer in a meeting of a community group with the Superintendent of the Cupertino School System). As a member of this group, I was privy to the results of a school based study to diagnose why children in the Cupertino School System were malnourished.

The findings of this study challenged a very "thick denial" in the room by the wealthy people in the room, who were not personally derailed by the recession. These people were shocked to learn their neighbors who were laid off could not feed their children. Most of these children were going through a school day with no food, because their parents had lost their jobs. Parallel to this study in San Jose, CA diagnosed the source of a growing homeless problem in San Jose. The problem was accelerating as a result of economic challenged families; the homeless population no longer could simply be seen described as the drug addicted, alcoholic or depressed PTSD diagnosed Veterans.

This past week, John Sculley, former CEO of Apple 35 years ago, spoke with Daily Beast's Thomas Weber about his regrets and rift with now Apple CEO, Steve Jobs in 1986. Do you think it has occurred to Sculley to examine the harm that he followed by Michael Spindler, CEO of Apple in the early 90's? These layoffs and a phase of decline grew out of the rift with Jobs that Sculley sparked and spiraled into a recession that left children malnourished and causing families to lose their homes.

Through May and into early June, as the BP Oil Spill continued and I did my best to absorb the implications of the message from the Global Reporting Conference 2010 and the overwhelming value of reports from the Ceres 2010 Conference, the week prior to GRI, I found myself at a meeting in Washington DC with a safe chemical community partnership that has been formed to help lobby and advocate for to revise update US Chemical legislation and policy.

Hard working people from around the country attended this meeting. They represented Ngo's, corporations and government agencies, Everyone participated with a sincerity and intent to have impact. The meeting was well designed, informative and presented an opportunity for quality networking.

Along with my experience of research re: REACH and Non-ionizing radiation, I left the meeting knowing intuitively all the quality legislation in the world in any country will not prevent the equivalent of a chemical BP Oil Spill. All the legislation passed cannot protect people from disasters as they occur if business perpetuates a culture of harm, government invests and writes laws of fear that create expensive bureaucracies and non profits continue a focus of raising philanthropic investment for media campaigns and protests that create confusion and do not empower learning to lead change and repair harm.

This week, the volume of my intuitive message increased in decibels. This voice was shouting in my head as loudly as it did during other occassions when

I resigned from Harvard's HMO in the early 80's;

I experienced the DEC frenzy resulting in my layoff late 80's,

The eruption of E-commerce turning into a recession in the late 90's;

I returned from California to Boston in 1999, to witnessed the full cycle of harm from years of financial mismanagement that put Harvard Pilgrim Health Care in receivership.

What is MIssing?

That question has been burning in side of me since I returned to Boston from WDC last week from the meeting related to TSCA and Safe Chemicals.

Nothing is going to escape what I know is the only way to construct an economy of change through lots of people to bring about a new form of complex work that breathes life into the global and local economies to become a living ecosystem of sustainability. Within companies, government entities and non profits that oversee the payrolls of workers , who want to carry out their jobs with the intent to live stable lives there is now absolutely no escape from doing the hard work that it means to assure and build a sustainable economy.

You see it would have taken hard work to synchronize the medical record system at Harvard Pilgrim with the financial system; and more hard work to get the information organized and feeding in synch with the hospitals that billed Harvard Pilgrim insurance. This was know years ago even before my resignation in the early 1980's when I made the decision to leave while I could still be viewed a success. For some reason my voice among many other hard workers was not heard.

Many at Digital Equipment Corporation knew that Ken Olsen's view of mini computing was not responsive to the new frontier of personal computing. The people could not counter act Ken Olsen's stubbornness and the harm that followed.

I recall at one point in grad school seeing a film simulating the engineering conversation about the Challenger where one male engineer's voice expressing concern about something faulty was overlooked and what he said diminished. I recalled a conference call I attended with a major petroleum company (not BP), earlier in this decade with a team was working with an $800K investment in software for an oil and drill knowledge management system. Again those of us who were hard working, questioned how a corporation could invest $800k in a system that was not put into wide use, could not get heard.

Many say they are confused by the term sustainability and don't know what it means. Let me offer you a simple definition I provided to Aman Singh, Vault.com's CSR correspondent, in a review of Kathrin Winkler's role at EMC as Chief Sustainability Officer,

" sustainability is based on a simple premise: 'corporate sustainability is really about business survival: Take the long view, or your business won't survive in a failing global society or environment. Long-term sustainability affects customers, employees, suppliers, neighbors, partners, governmental bodies, and civil society. If we make our business choices based on how we interact with those stakeholders, then we are promoting sustainability."

Let me in this moment return the chemical agenda I have been researching that has grown out of Europe's REACH legislation and the movement of other countries to adopt this regulation or build new legislative platforms e.g. the US revision of TSCA.

Again somewhere in the crowd is a chemist who understands that one of the 80,000+ chemicals in use in a small amount may be showing signs of doing wide spread harm and at present this chemist cannot prove it. This hard working individual has an idea that needs research and support and encouragement but from a financial view and from the perspective of shareholder investment pushing on the perception of this voice who understands it is necessary that a large volume of this chemical is in use.

REACH regulation contains a 1 ton qualifier. It does not apply to a potential chemical in use where the proportion is much smaller than the potential harm. There are now 350+ chemicals that have been identified that are worthy of research and further investigation that are not based on this 1 Ton in use qualifier. The 1 Ton qualifier diminishes the voice of a hard working chemist or health professional, who loves his/her job or has a feeling in his/her gut that a chemical they recognize should be of concern. This is one point of vulnerability of many that investors and economic decision makers or company leaders never gain insight into potential harm.

In following the rapid change over the past few years at General Electric and Walmart, I have been slowly grasping what it means when a major global corporation views itself as an economy rather than a company and a player that influences the natural ebb and ecological flow of an economy. Neither GE or Walmart have perfected their science and they are demonstrating methods of continuous learning that convene the small voices of natural leadership to do the hard work that assures a viable scientific agenda and resources to assure no harm.

This week, Elaine Cohen, found a hidden jewel in Warren Buffet's complex of business. She found one company Shaw Floors wrote a CSR report., I wondered if this could be a door of possibility through which Berkshire Industries might follow Walmart and General Electric and begin to lead itself as a sustainable economy? I am holding similar thoughts for HP to do the same. Last week, I learned that HP's material purchases from its supply chain over 179 countries totals $79B. I bet HP could benefit from sitting at the table with GE and Walmart it may find a formula to invest in the research of numerous chemist within its supply chain to exercise precaution based on the Earth Charter Principle to do no harm.

This week after a sinus infection, I discovered a love for mixing Trader Joes' rasberry and lemon sorbet to lighten that sour feeling in my mouth from learning to be patient as people in reaction from all sectors learn to stop the BP oil gush and sort out a system by which to repair harm and prevent further harm. Hopefully the press and community voices and groups will move into a format of reporting on the emerging resources and activities that are surfacing to repair the trauma, harm and fee of unproductive chaos of reaction.

Registration is now open for the second in the workshop series
sponsored by Cal/EPA Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment,
and the Centers for Occupational and Environmental Health (COEH) at UC
Berkeley and UCLA:

Senate Bill 509 requires Cal/EPA's Office of
Environmental Health
Hazard Assessment to evaluate and specify the hazard traits,
toxicological and environmental endpoints and other relevant data to be
included in California's Toxics Information Clearinghouse. The
Clearinghouse will be constructed by the Department of Toxic Substances
Control and will include traits related to human health, ecological
toxicity and potential for exposure. This workshop explores indicators
of ecotoxicity and exposure potential for inclusion in the Toxics
Information Clearinghouse.

To obtain a copy of the agenda or to simply register, please send
your name, email address and affiliation to: elina.nasser@ucla.edu

October 16, 2009

This past month I received invitations from a number of colleagues I respect including Bill Baue, Olle Johansson, Eileen O'Connor, Art Kleiner and Ralph Meima. These invitations were to events of learning that explore inquiries into aspects of what I believe is forming a new WorkEcology.

The "idea" of WorkEcology relies on an expectation that in all aspects of life we are embracing a need to explore a culture of change and not simply focused on personal change and personal growth. A "culture of change" implies that we are convening communities of practice into sustainable learning forums where groups of people come together to learn and apply that learning to lead change.

I reviewed each invitations as it arrived and attended one event. I reflected on each activity in the context of my research and current learning trajectory to discover and define a new forum of learning that integrates the practice of evidence based medicine and the evolution of the chaos of research relative to the environment and health, where you always find conflicting research.
This adventure is turning me into an Agatha Christie of Sustainability because of my passion to learn how to apply the Precautionary Principle in action. This very personal "up close and personal" research has been a challenging learning journey, driven both by my life experience and the need I perceived to learn how to filter of the "Earth Charter's Principle of Exercising Precaution," into how we make decisions n any aspect of life.

My personal view grew out of my study of European environment and health legislation because I saw it so timely to the change that is now emerging in today's economy and personally motivated to make meaning of my own health experience and the effect of environmental toxins and non-ionizing radiation, sometimes described as EMF on my own health.

I have finally filtered from my personal experience a way to talk about this experience and what I learned rather than work my energy so hard that I hide my experience for fear people will view me a victim or misunderstand my experience and episodes of illness. Now there is ample scientific report and research to quantify my experience which I will describe in part within a new medical text book that I am contributing to on the practice of narrative medicine and utilization of technology and social media.

This experience ran in parallel with my value for the idea of "doing no harm" and building decisions and approaches to living and working that are sustainable and make it possible for the next generation to live well. I realized what is unique to how I think truly grows from my vision to participate and work with people who recognize and translate a need to address future generations in how we approach work, live and sustain ourselves, our health and the health of the environment. This perspective for me grew out of years of research on the implications of downsizing and layoffs and the issues related to a multi-generational workforce.

This economic ecological view of environment and health was basic to my decision to launch WorkEcology website as a community of practice after a conversation with Art Kleiner in 2003. . My friend Whit Tice

has taken this thought leadership a step forward with the discussion he launched this month titled The Latest and Greatest from Whit. Whit is filtering what I describe as principles of an ecological workforce through his view of the multi-generational workforce and the implications of reduction of available jobs. Whit's blog is a gathering place for anyone who wants to learn about the elements of becoming a portfolio worker and participate in the thought leadership that I tech in my course called Foundations of CoreGroup Theory and Practice.

The format for the meeting put all participants at ease no matter there form of participation --- learners, contributors and presenters. No one knew too little or knew too much. While the topic invited an exchange of intellect that could be very overpowering and heady, each presenter and participant was brought into a pace of learning that was comfortable and assured a pace where all could participate. In my experience, this atmosphere of learning is not easily where the topic is related to the environment of climate change. Kudos to Bill Baue and all present.

All the people in attendance had a clear intention to learn no matter what they could teach or contribute to the dialogue. No one was there just to hang out. The learning environment constructed reflected Audubon's mission, to convene conversations that empower a culture of change. By November, I will post an article that summarizes what was presented and explored at this meeting in detail.

By the end of September, I was able to find a way to focus of my work with a renewed energy that I used to prioritize my time and select where I dedicated my time to conversations, work with others and research.

While the time spent learning about potential grant applications, did not result in finding a grant, this "not so trivial pursuit" resulted in and produced remarkable value. It resulted in my give more concrete definition to the mission, purpose and activity for WorkEcology. This thinking is driving my writing to a level of clarity that is contributing great value to anything I write now

Core to my thinking that grew out of my time spent in Greenwich, CT, I was able to more explicitly describe my
niche and audience for my work. This niche resides with the people who wish to learn and apply the
Precautionary Principle in all aspects of the economy to lead change through formation of "living networks" (not institutions).

"the first conference of its kind - designed to tackle the challenges posed by the rapid growth of EMNCs, and forge partnerships with businesses from across the globe.I don’t think any shift in business today has as many consequences and ramifications, and I look forward to learning a great deal."

Here now is October's update on WorkEcology and WeCareHealth:

Grant Applications

The Nau Grant application became a valuable lesson learned. Mid way in the campaign it became clear that this grant activity was not right for WorkEcology and at the same time it pushed me to lead and synthesize a system of thought so I can begin to continually apply for grants.

After I initially produced the Nau Nomination Collective Story with Rosalinda Sanquiche, EthicalMarkets.com, I gave my attention to two other grant applications. I learned something new during this review about grants; grants are determined based on whether or not you have carried out this project successfully in the past and grants are often awarded for aa repetition of a proven learning.

Given my respect and my learning experience with Buckminster Fuller, I decided to learn how to apply for the Buckminister Institute Challenge Award. From this website, I discovered a trend in grant awards that would require a time line of a year or more of preparation work before WorkEcology could make application. So I am carefully considering this for 2010.

The Buckminster Fuller Challenge Award's purpose is to grant a new idea that is brought into practice and recognized. What is remarkable about this grant is the grant community actually contributes to building the BFI Idea Index of how new ideas come into fruition and links you to the people who have created these ideas through applied learning in a culture of change.

If you do not win the Challenge the story of your grant application is available at this site so others can consider getting involved with you or investing in your work. So it can return more to the applicant for the personal return on investment you make into your own idea.

From my view others have attempted something similar and not in such an empowering way. This method of granting encourages people to learn and bring about new ideas that have not produced social outcomes of this kind.

It is very different than the "institutional investor view," that Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of General Electric outlined to Hass Students, October 2008. In this lecture, Jeffrey described himself as a CEO investor with deep pockets to create networks of investment within GE and its supply chain to create change for energy and health. Given the reality of September 2009 and Wall Street, we all know now those deep pockets are rare and some of the most remarkable innovations grew out of no investment at all. I do not find the idea of no "investment" favorable personally because no idea grows without some kind of investment and my studies of micro-finance and enterprises and my own experience prove the opposite.

From all this self-generative learning, as the only person focused on WorkEcology and its development to make it real as a economic practice (embracing all aspects of the economy market place and beyond market), I concluded that I don't have time to muster and organize to become a non profit or recruit others to work with me in a format that assures they follow through me.

So this became an excellent learning leverage point that has helped me harvest the focus of activity that WorkEcology and I are now focused on.

My focus on Sustainability and the outgrowth of thought that grew over the past 40 years out of the Brundtland Commission convened by Harlem Gro Brundtland in 1983. I concluded in my conversation with Ralph that for me it is important that the design any conversation or project I am involved with assures future generations their existence and health. For me this is what matters to assure a quality of investigation, inquiry and education that serves to bring about healthy environment, health and economic outcomes.

During the conversation with Ralph,

With Ralph, I then explored the history of sustainability and education and began to hypothesize from the view of appreciative inquiry, what is working now and what can be working better, I was able to identify what is core to my own education, how I learn, teach and mentor now. This is the value for an education format called Capstone. Capstone education is a way to instill in students a method of learning theory applied to real world experience in a vocation in any economic sector, which is what is accomplished by teams and individuals who set out place their idea and project recorded in the Buckminster Fuller Challenge Idea Index .

I am an early Capstone graduate back to my first thesis on education in High School where I examined alternative methods of how people learn and the history of education. It is a method by which I have approached any new project I take on through work, community or home.

By the end of lunch, Ralph suggested that in a sense everything I have done over the last decade has grown into a living chronicle of sustainable education. I took his observation seriously and began to design an approach to this blog that reflected that.

Ralph's feedback to me is also grounded in his years of work and study in Sweden that gives provides both of us an quality foundation from which to converse, learn and teach. I am looking forward to reviewing Ralph's new book on scenario planning which is now in production and attending the December program for Marlboro Sustainability MBA Students to learn how I can contribute.

Unlike any previous environmental legislation in EU or United States, REACH is not about compliance or banning use, REACH
legislation pushes manufacturing companies doing business in the European Union
to think differently about the products they produce and the chemicals they
emit. This legislation is mandating a new forum of education through which manufacturers need to partner with all sectors to generate a new forum of learning from which to build sustainable learning and act on what is learned.

I am now synthesizing what I believe this learning model is now and can be. The Precautionary Principle is pushing a new format of learning that is interactive and requires thought. While the education has a technical basis drawing on a high level of math, science and technology, this learning does is going to push people to be life long learners in and out of school environments. The learning practice will require constant assessment of the knowledge and its application to what is relevant today in matters of work, health and environment. No matter what sector you live or work in or culture, you will have to extract continuously knowledge from representatives of multiple expertise and culture to understand the current scientific agenda that assures citizens an investigation into early warnings or hints of harm and helps foster a dialogue to "do no harm."

Olle Johansson, M.D., Karolinska Institute sent me my invitation which I celebrated, even thought I am disappointed that I cannot attend. . Olle has been an exceptional member of my advice network since I was captured by the EMF global inquiry in 2003. He has joined in my conversation to learn if Non-ionizing EMF radiation could benefit from adoption into the REACH category of legislation which would move this issue forward for intelligent and responsible response in the US. Since while REACH legislation was passed by the European Parliament, it is relevant to any manufacturer selling product in EU, so it includes US manufacturers.

There is a recent advancement in the EMF discussion in Europe summarized at the Stavanger Conference Invitation that describes this advancement in the context of the Precautionary Principle,

"Current
regulatory limits are falling. An overwhelming majority of the European
Parliament recently voted for a set of changes based on health concerns
associated with electromagnetic fields. In a resolution 4th September
2008, the European Parliament notes that “the limits on exposure to
electromagnetic fields which have been set for the general public are
obsolete”, “obviously take no account of developments in information
and communicationtechnologies”, and “do not
address the issue of vulnerable groups, such as pregnant women, newborn
babies and children.” These eye-opening statements are indeed
remarkable. A few countries have already acted in line with sound
precautionary principles. Russia and China, Switzerland, Italy and Lichtenstein have acted unilaterally to protect their own populations from the health hazards of electromagnetic radiation. "

This is an area in which the United States is behind Europe. I believe if I can find a funding source to attend this meeting, I can develop a report that will be a valuable tool to industry and all sectors and ultimately people sensitive to EMF toxicity. This toxin displaces people from their homes, communities of belonging and much more when it complicates a person's health and can harm their finances or push them to lose insurance coverage when in a country where insurance relies on the private sector for coverage. This social frontier is the last to be discussed in a way that goes beyond how often issues of scientific research are addressed to exercise precaution.

Starting June 2007, in the
European Union Registration, Evaluation and Authorization of Chemicals
legislation (REACH) went into effect. Like the
“End-of-Life Vehicles Directive (2000), “Restriction on the use of certain
hazardous substances in electrical and electronic products” directive (2002)
and the “Waste electrical and electronic equipment” directive (2002), REACH
legislation pushes manufacturing companies doing business in the European Union
to think differently about the products they produce and the chemicals they
emit.

Within the
context of a global dialogue today, this principle is an outgrowth of
a global dialogue that has taken place over 40 years contributed to by
thousands of environmental experts, non-governmental organizations and
private citizens that met over the course of numerous international
conferences that was launched bythe Brundtland Commission, which was convened by the UN and chaired by Gro Harlem Brundtland in 1983.

Leveraged from the ideas and cases shared in this text book, I am building a design for a subscriber base blog to build a community of practice in Narrative Medicine.

A group of people will convene in New York sometime before 2010 to build a plan in action to form a professional association for clinicians and patients advocates who work with this approach to health practice. I will be the convener of this group.

October 08, 2009

Starting June 2007, in the
European Union Registration, Evaluation and Authorization of Chemicals
legislation (REACH) went into effect. Like the
“End-of-Life Vehicles Directive (2000), “Restriction on the use of certain
hazardous substances in electrical and electronic products” directive (2002)
and the “Waste electrical and electronic equipment” directive (2002), REACH
legislation pushes manufacturing companies doing business in the European Union
to think differently about the products they produce and the chemicals they
emit.

Each of these
directives serves to address the substances used to manufacture these products,
and in some instances how to recycle the materials contained within these
products, expand the scope of product to technology and monitor the potential
risk of chemicals contained in products and considers how to dispose the waste
of these chemicals or to replace them with less hazardous ones.

The aim of all
these directives is to improve the protection of the environment and human
health by putting greater responsibility on the manufacturers to monitor
potential high risk and to report on new chemicals and other exposures that can
replace more hazardous ones, consider how to dispose the waste of products at
the end of their life cycle.

In June 2008, a
new initiative described as REACH-IT was established as a central registration
organization based in Finland. Any manufacturer doing business in the European
Union is required to register chemical substances they manufacture or use in
the amount of one ton or more.

All this
legislation, in short, places the “burden of proof” on manufacturers – to be
certain of dangerous effects before the fact; while the products are in
development and in the case of vehicle manufacturing consider the impact of the
materials contained within the product in preparation for how they are
recycled.

News outlets within
manufacturing, e.g. ANSI have been reporting that REACH in China is now on the drawing table,
making REACH a global manufacturing mandate.China and Korea have already adopted RoHS and WEEE.

According to Friend,“REACH suggests that manufacturing
executives must rethink how they approach strategy and hence research and
development.” In other words, REACH follows a countervailing premise to
the typical approach – that polluters are “innocent until proven guilty.”
Instead, REACH is an example of an idea that will increasingly influence the
corporate world – and that corporate leaders don’t yet know how to respond to
strategically. This idea is known, in environmental circles, as “The
Precautionary Principle.”

Michael Kirschner, President of Design Chain Associates, LLC, notes that REACH came about
because of the frustration that is more common today with the increasing number
of studies on toxicity and environmental impact creating confusion rather than
clear scientific direction.Lots
of studies either explicitly or more often, show a possible connection between
a specific chemical substance and a problem for humans, animals or the
environment.

Design Chain Associates provides services that help Electronics OEMs and other
product manufacturers increase engineering, procurement, and production
efficiency, product and operational environmental performance, and corporate
profitability by ensuring that the right decisions about supply base and the
environment are made during the earliest stages of the product lifecycle, and
are built-in to corporate strategies and tactics.

Kirschner has been one of
the leading practice leaders, preparing the Supply Chain to understand REACH by
monitoring current and global events related to REACH and participating in a
global forum funded by the European Commision at UC Berkeley’s Center for
Institutions and Governance , directed by Heddy Riss.Ms.
Riss has at UC Berkeley has convened a group ofwhere academic leaders across the expertise of government,
policy, law and environmental science to understand the implications of REACH
and the role Academics can serve to educate and/or respond to manufacturing
education and professional development.

Kirschner's action research
on the history of environmental law and manufacturing's response to those laws
in California, Korea, China and the EU has been a key contribution to the
community convened by Ms. Riss through Berkeley and Standford University.Kirschner believes that downstream more
conversations are going to have to occur in the context of when and how to
exercise precaution. He has ascertained that percentage of manufacturers,
particularly SME’s in the EU and US (doing business with the EU) who are aware
of REACH and have some understanding may be as low as 30%.

According to Kirschner,
with WEEE and RoHS the 30% of manufacturers who sought education on this
legislation initiated a response by building systems of compliance. The cost of
compliance to the EU’s RoHS directive was $32.7B across the entire electronics
supply chain, or about 1.1% of total annual industry revenue.

Unlike RoHS and WEEE,
REACH asks for the introduction of an ongoing process of review, which is
guiding manufacturers to integrate a more strategic system of learning,
evaluation, review and discovery which measures a thought leadership practice
described as“Sustainable Value,” whereby manufacturing owns responsibility by

monitoring the potential high risk of
chemicals and reporting on new chemicals that replace hazardous ones;

engaging ina process of evaluation which asks for ongoing research
and data analysis;

participating in continuously learning with
other manufacturers who register substances of very high concern, “SVHCs”
which can be restricted from use;

integrating a horizontal perspective into
decision making processes which measure metrics from a more horizontal
perspective of their impact on society and environment, in addition to
impact on the bottom line.

The supply chain is not
designed to make compliance with these sorts of regulations easy, since it was
not designed with REACH in mind. Companies and educational institutions are not
configured to instruct about REACH or facilitate its implementation.This presents serious infrastructure
problems and a call for developing educational programs for manufacturers cross
numerous industries that include chemicals, automotive, electronics, medical
devices and bio-pharmaceuticals to name a few.

Kirshner believes that
there is an opportunity for large manufacturers, e.g. Dupont to organize to
educate the supply chain and enable change across the entire sector, so that
small manufacturers within the sector can be responsive and not get lost in the
chaos of change due to the cost of reorganization and access to educational
forums.

1.Reach is more than a law about chemical substances?

2.It implies that a manufacturer of any tangible
article/product, e.g. toys, vehicles, clothing, furniture, electronicscan have many parts which have many
chemical substances.

3.Example: A desk-top computer has upwards of 2000
chemical substances.

4.REACH is only concerned with what may be less than
2000 substances of very high concern (SVHC’s), which include but are not
limited to

a.Carcinogenices, mutagenics and toxic for
reproduction CMR, and it is these substances that are registered.

b.PBT’s 9 persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic or
very toxic PBT’s

c.Endocrine disruptors or any substance equivalent in
concern and impact on health.

5.The initial list ofSVHC’s will bepublished in October.Thus
far, non-profit environmental groups have identified 300 substances as SVHC’s
versus 16 identified by the European Commission to date. Part of the process of
registration will be to replace use of substances that prove harmful with new
ones.

Implications of REACH
IT and its data base?

Kirshcner has outlined
from his view that the best response for most manufacturers registering SVHC’s
with REACH IT is to

1.Be proactive and register. If you don’t register
you could find that you have fulfilled an order of a product that will be
banned from shipment.

2.Work with the experts in your network – research
based scientists in the non profit and academic sector, manufacturers who
supply you components used within your products that contain SVHC’s, your
r&d staff and government agencies that track and monitor issues related to
these SVHC’s, e.g. the EPA.

3.This permits people to realize where the risk lies
within your network beyond your own company and who you will have to work with
to respond if a substance proves harmful and what the recommendations are

4.This may result in through a passive process of you
learning about contaminants through Product Change Notices that are removed
from use and insure you have suppliers who provide you replacement components adopting
new substances.

5.Organize your leadership group to join in an
education forum out of which they can learn to see opportunities and formulate
strategies with a long view.

6.Parallel to preparing your organization to build
and act on a more strategic view, build a new communication chain to learn
about the status of SVHC research that is proactive with your supply network,
scientists who perform research on substances independent of your company and
government agencies, who will be responding to defining levels of toxicity
through medical and environmental research.

7.Through your larger social network outlined in
recommendations 3 and 6 begin to examine opportunities for how your company and
products can exercise precaution so that people you sell your products to or
people who live by manufacturing plants owned by you or your suppliers are not
harmed.

What does this mean
with respect to Exercising Precaution?

REACH follows a
countervailing premise to the typical approach – that polluters are “innocent until
proven guilty.” Instead, REACH is an example of an idea that will increasingly
influence the corporate world – and that corporate leaders don’t yet know how
to respond to strategically. This idea is known, in environmental circles, as
“The Precautionary Principle.”

This all serves to
underscore the opportunity for exercising the Precautionary Principle with a
more concrete approach that pushes companies to register and examine the global
data base organized by European Chemical Agency (ECHA)and examine how this data can
translate to the flow of conversations within a company and with its value
chain of suppliers, distributors and consumers.

At present, The REACH-IT
format and design is an opportunity to redesign data management with a focus on
compliance and building information to identify patterns and historical trends
from which to define response to a more strategic knowledge management
practices satisfies inquiring minds and wise practices for manufacturers who
accept the responsibility of REACH.

The question becomes what
is critical to IT design to organize from a data management view into a more
strategic view where by data can become part of a practice of wisdom and
managed as knowledge that monitors return on investment.

Chauncey Bell, expert IT designer and organizational strategist, has asserted that the
application of technology and the design of data bases that serve organizations
to work wisely and will empower the people within these organizations to
develop a flow of conversations as modeled successfully by Toyota that permits
them to learn from mistakes and even invent mistakes to learn from and build on
new social realities that shape intention and purpose.

Collecting information
(data) and analyzing it and therefore ascertaining how to develop, invest and
sustain maintenance of technology and systems is increasingly become a
significant focus on monitoring the bottom line and organizational roi, hence
how to define the purpose and intent of knowledge management is the focus of
this chapter by Chauncey Bell in Moving from Knowledge Management to Wisdom.From his review of C. West
Churchman’s inquiry into designing systems, from his analysis of
responsibilities, roles in organization and how information is related to by all
people in an organization in order to assure a viable future, Chauncey Bell
succeeds in capturing the reader’s attention to recognize that a limited view
of design, task and technology is now what adds up to an ethical high
performance that engages people in inquiry that assures a companies future and
hence, continuous improvement of a organizations performance.

The traditional forms of
preparation that managers conduct to assure a future that include strategic
planning, forecasting demand, proposal and review of capital budgets. Decisions
re: capital expenditures, management of cash flow relative to capital
investment, execution of capital projects, accounting and measuring rate of
return on investment can be expensive, bureaucratic and generate a lot of
paper.

The question becomes what
is the role of people (and who) in relating to these tasks and how does
leadership organize itself unifying the organization to make future investments
quickly, potentially stretched over a long period of time that may be
unconventional and further progress of goofy ideas that engage the type of
learning that assures a future.

In this chapter, Bell
outlines a thought leadership and analysis of the complex interplay of what
builds a “wise” practice in organizations between people and how innovation can
emerge as a result. Bell’s maps out an understanding of what comprises
organizational performance and why some organizations are market responsive and
innovative while others simply sit dormant with mechanical responses that
compromise the future of the companies value to its stakeholders. As a person
specializing in IT design for organizations, Bell maps out a thinking that
injects life into the an organization where the cost of collecting data and
learning from that data can be excessive if a purpose and intent for learning
is not mapped out to assure an organization future.

This perspective is key to
establishing investment relationships of any kind whether based on venture,
philanthropy or cooperative work (elbow grease).Bell is one of the few thought leaders who bases his thought
leadership on philosophy on language and philosophy, who takes into account how
people learn.Hence growing from
observations new possibilities from which a group of people can act to construct
a new viable future.

REACH has the potential to
be an example of how manufacturing can build a new social reality that is
concrete and respects the Precautionary Principle With purpose and intention,
manufacturers and their supply chain can author conversations based on
possibilities and zero in on the requests and promises it takes to act and
respond to insure they do no harm.More important the registration system with REACH IT creates
accountability. Hence, it puts the onus on manufacturers to work with their
supply chains for the benefit of their consumers to learn from recommendations
authored by the independent scientific community on how to apply these
recommendations to exercise precaution and ongoing review the substances,
components an products to “do no harm.”

One attempt to provide
such education was by The European Union Environmental Protection Agency, when
itreleased a report in January
2002 titled, Late Lessons from Early Warnings: the Precautionary Principle
1896-2000. The report is written from the perspective that scientific research as
innovative as it is can no longer predict the consequences of hazardous
substances on health and the environment. This report summarized the results of
an investigation regarding 14 costly hazards e.g. radiation, benzene, asbestos
and polycholorinated biphenyls (PCBs).Within each report authored by a subject matter scientific expert is a
description of the history of harm, the early lessons and how and how exercised
or misused the concept of precaution and where the findings influenced the
adoption of government regulations that mandated manufacturing compliance.

The report also summarized
the difficulty and challenges ahead based on this history with exercising
precaution because of the confusion on how to deal with scientific
uncertainties and potential hazards, where conflicting research makes it
impossible to draw quality scientific confusions.

Historically, where there
is a threat or appears to be a threat, environmentalists organized through non
profit organizations and government agencies oversaw the definition of
standards and requirements for legislation and policy.Through either reports of hazardous
events or the dissemination of research that is often conflicting, corporations
traditionally responded to the information overload challenging the research
results validity or initiating activities to suppress the information
circulated.With the introduction
of new environmental legislation and policies, fewer than 30% of manufacturers
were in a communication channel or association that assured education on which
they can act.

An example of a current
topical issue that has been given great press attention as of late relates to
the potential threat of non-ionizing electromagnetic radiation produced by cell
phones often described as EMF exposure. EMF, while not defined as a chemical
substances is surrounded by the type of confusion that often prevents any
conclusions to be drawn that can advise consumers and manufacturers.Larry King, who has produced 2-3 shows on Cell Phones and Cancer, interviewed
Dr. Devra Davis, director of the Center for Environmental Oncology at the
University of Pittsburgh's Cancer Institute. Dr. Davis illustrated this point well when
she stated, “The reality is we do not have studies yet and, with all due
respect, we can't vote on whether or not cell phones cause cancer with polls.
What we need is independent research. In fact, Dr. Herberman , Dr. Song and Dr. Bondy who were also interviewed by King made note that the cell phone industries need to make their data publicly available for independent
evaluation by scientists. A transcript of this conversation is available at here from CNN

In the EMF world,
confusion has mounted over the past 3-5 years as non profit groups and academic
research centers report on research findings that are contradictory or position
dissemination of research as a form of attack and debate. In the UK through
cooperation with the UK’s Minister of Health and Safety, Sir William Stewart a
group of private citizens have formed the Radiation Research Trust, (RRT),
led by Executive Director, Eileen O’Connor. Sir William Stewart retired last year and it is wonderful to see that the dialogue he cheered and supported with RRT is now sustainable.

O'Connor is a breast cancer survivor whose
health was challenged by EMF exposure.On September 7, 2008, RRT convened a meeting of 72 expert scientists
from around the world, conducting independent research apart from industry to
examine the research to date and make recommendations for the future. The
experts invited to present represent different views, research results and
experiences.

At this time it is unclear
if EMF would be listed as a hazard in the REACH IT data base, since this hazard
is not a substance within a product, but the design of the product can emit
this potentially threatening hazard. While this meeting is drawing from experts
involved years of social networking and research activities across government
agencies of all locales (local to international), it does not address the
question of how manufacturers can exercise precaution and how manufacturing can
benefit from exercising precaution regarding this potential hazard.

With the onus on
manufacturers to now exercise precaution, the method by which to approach this
and operationalize this kind of strategy would consider independent science and
applying that scientific knowledge to a strategic process fo sustainable value
creation, which will shift how the environmental advocates, scientists,
legislators and policy makers relate business.

While advocates for
the environment and scientific researchers have refused to work directly with
business. Pulitzer Prize winner, Jared Diamond believes that big business is
most powerful force in the modern world and it won’t be possible to solve
environmental problems without business. Diamond in his most recent book, selected
to write about some of the most significant environmental problems in the
context of business realities, making the case that without business we cannot
avoid collapse of societies.

Yet there are
businesses who have chosen to address potential collapse and launch inquiries
from which sustainable value creation can be measured as a return on
investment.

Laszlo is a managing
partner and founder of Sustainable Value Partners,
a global consulting firm based in
Washington DC.Chris defines
through his experience with clients and colleagues, a new

thought leadership for
“how business can be an agent of world benefit.”In the foreward of this book, Tyler J. Elm, former Corporate
Strategy and Finance Director at Walmart Stores points out of the world’s
largest 100 economies, 42 of these economies are corporations not
countries.

In the context of what
Diamond and Elm have asserted, Chris Laszlo provides a thought leadership that
concretely demonstrates how organizations can launch an inquiry process of
learning and design to build sustainable value creation. The stories actual
case studies of how Dupont, LaFarge, Nature Works, a subsidiary fo Cargill and Walmart
engaged with this transformational process and what results they produced in
terms of the environment, society/local.Within each case study, Laszlo identifies the leadership and
their drivers to author a strategy that produced tangible and concrete results
financially that were environmentally sound and in some instances impacted
improvement in the lives of people who lived near or worked for these
companies.

For example, at Dupont the
intiatives were led by both the CEO, Chad Holliday and Dr. Paul Tebo, Corporate
Vice President for Health, Safety and the Environment. Holliday called for the
development of sustainable initiatives after earnest in 1988 after Greenpeace
activists hung a banner at Dupont labeling this company the number 1 polluter.Tebo saw an opportunity to be ahead of
the curve on government regulation and create a performance and practice that
would shape regulation.

Through the unwaivering
support of Holliday, and the company’s decision to integrate sustainability into
the companies performance metrics and compensation plans for key employees, and
the outreach to other sectors through a partnership with a non-profit
educational institute World Resources Institute to achieve a 10% renewable
energy goal and establishing an advisory board that drew on expertise from
biotechnology and health.In 1995,
Holliday pointed out the value of building many forms of partnerships with
stakeholders from all sectors –government, citizen groups and scientists. He
pointed out the benefits of this through dialogue was the only way to spark
innovation that would address human need.

By 2015, Dupont plans to
double its investment, increase its revenues from non-depletable resources to
at least $8B and grow annual revenues by at least $2B from products that create
energy efficiency or reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Laszlo also provided a a
description of process and tools to carry out these initiatives that include

a sustainable value framework from which
managers can engage in a process of conversation to learn with each other
to think out of the box and create and sustain competitive advantage;

identification of 8 disciplines to learn how
to think across sectors on how to conduct a values assessment and build a
future not based on the past from which something new can be introduced
supported by continuous learning to create value;

tools and descriptions of learn scenarios
onhow to assess, select and
respond to rising societal issues that deserve response and how with those
responses companies can create value for the customers and communities in
which their business is located or draws resources;

a process for map the integration of a new
disciplines implied by sustainable value creation and how to monitorprogress and goals and metrics
achieved;

and finally suggestions on how to seek
education externally and join in a social network of intelligence,
learning and knowledge share, e.g. The Center for Business as an Agent
at the Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University which has become a hub for
perspectives drawn from all sectors globally and served to influence
change in educational curriculum around the world.

Through Laszlo’s storytelling,
he showed the merits of sustainable value creation when integrated with company
strategy and driven by the leadership of the organization.

This thought leadership has moved leaders within many companies to

learn and hence energize the people who work
with them;

break from mechanical forms of thinking that
result in declining profits, work environments of low morale and create
harm;

author a future with a long view from which
to learn, act and succeed;

shape profits to be more sustainable;

learn and partner with a wider reaching
social network outside and in the company to learn from each other and
innovate change that requires multiple perspective and expertise;

concretely demonstrate business as an agent
of world benefit impacting on poverty, preventing environmental harm and
protecting the health of its consumers.

Conclusion

Within the European
Union and China architecture and organization is being established to track
approximately 2000 substances that have the potential of doing harm under the
legislative requirements of REACH.This legislation places the onus on manufacturing to exercise precaution
and monitor the possibility of doing harm.In legislating this registry into action, the European
Parliament has mandated manufacturing to move past environmental legislative
acts that mandated compliance to influence manufacturing to build a data base
that can assure a process is put in place to assess and monitor potentially
hazardous substances and to share in the continuous learning relative to these
substances from which to learn how to act and prevent harm, hence exercising
precaution.

Previously skeptics
of The Precautionary Principle have gotten lost in the confusion and
contradictory reports of research with respect to waiting until enough research
is collected as proof of harm or no harm. This reinforces the past cycles of
proving harm until harm is so significant, e.g. tobacco before precaution is
exercised and surrounds the topical issue of the time with more confusion
created by liability suits and the discoveries of harmful impact on generations
of people not yet born. This kind of cycle re-enforces advocacy patterns of
protest and debate and dissemination of information that overwhelms people and
creates business to build postures of defense or deceit.

With the onus
implied by REACH on manufacturing, there is a need for new forms of engagement
from which manufacturing can learn if it is doing harm, rather than waiting for
independent resources to point out that harm and the cost to the consumer and
entire communities of people. Thought Leader Chauncey Bell has provided a
thought leadership to measure IT activity in service of tracking return on
investment whereby leaders can learn and translate this learning into
conversations and responsive actions,

Sustainable value
creation as a thought leadership defined by Chris Laszlo provides a concrete
process and method by which manufacturing can engage a leadership practice to
exercise precaution, author imaginative strategies and define tangible and
intangible schemes of how to measure return on investment that is financially
viable and protects the environment and the sustainability of geographical
regions. This form of engagement is created from the perspective of leadership
authoring a strategy that can identify potential harm and build a knowledge
base from which not to do harm that build innovative responses that are
profitable and sustain the value of a company.

This approach
creates value through inquiry, learning and developing systems of application
that shifts a corporation to move from developing costly systems of compliance
to integrating what they learn outside the company with what they do in the
company by identifying who, what and how potential hazards harm to a strategic
approach that integrates the cost of learning with the opportunity to gain
return on investment that is as much about profit as it is preventing or
decreasing environmental harm and assuring societies and the people harm to
their health and the environment in which they live.

It brings
manufacturing to the threshold of opportunity perceived by Practice Leader,
Michael Kirschner who observes that

“the entities with
the capabilities to address, at least to the 80%/90% level, the major chemical
issues worldwide are the largest of the large manufacturers, governments, NGOs,
and universities with major chemistry departments. There is of course a whole
massive set of problems that the SMEs and supply chains that stretch back
upstream and again converge at a few huge chemical manufacturers.”

If you thread
together the thought leadership and practice leadership outlined here,the solutions that can grow out of the
REACH mandate for manufacturing may build a bridge from which large
manufacturers can become hubs of knowledge and sustainable value creatiion
rather than barriers to change and collapse of markets.

February 25, 2009

What can happen when two women, one a scientific researcher in a university research center and another a program manager for the government share a phone call decide to collaborate?

Debbie Raphael had heard about an organization called ChemSec.org based Sweden that was formed around the idea of bridging the gap between the scientific, non profit community, government and industry to overcome the confusion that arises from conflicting research reports on chemical toxins.

Debbie Raphael is a Manager with the San Francisco Department of Environment for Toxic Reduction Program in San Francisco. As part of her responsibility, she feels it is key to identify “defensible criteria" in her selection or designation of safer alternatives. In hearing about the SIN List , a research and educational initiative championed by ChemSec, Deb asked around and learned that Meg Schwarzman, M.D., MPH and Research Scientist at University of California, Berkeley Center for Occupational Health and Environment had participated in the review of specific chemicals on this list.

Meg arranged for a conference call with ChemSec Leadership, Jerker Litghart, Project Coordinator, EU & Chemicals and Nardono Nimpuno, Policy Advisor. During the phone call Meg and Debbie discovered that Jerker and Nardono had a trip planned to the US. The four of them decided it would be convenient to organize a program in they convened together on January 27, 2009 called Substitute It Now.

Debbie felt this program important because the SIN list’s link to REACH made it particularly interesting because REACH is a potential model for California.

This simple formation of quality social networking formed out of a Debbie’s interest to learn and seek advice from someone she counts on for advice pertaining to how she does her job and the two of them linking with peers who had similar expertise and background and were part of a social innovation network seeking to address a societal issue that effects government, non profits and commercial industry.

Registration, Evaluation and Authorization of Chemicals Legislation (REACH) grew out of 10 years of consensus building across 26 states in the European Union. Beginning, June 2007 to learn how to put this legislation completely into effect. The developments that wove into legislating REACH and the agenda behind the 11 year time line to insure this legislations effectiveness is an invisible story mixed with scientific research, an inquiry design supporting a culture of change in every sector and how scientists, policy experts, commercial industry and non- governmental organizations (NGOs) relate to engender change.

The Legislation is contained in 141 articles of explanation and 17 annexed sections comprising 278 pages. Unlike the last 40 years history of legislation related to the environment and hazardous toxins, REACH does not ask companies to ban use of chemicals based on standards of evidence already know at the time of legislation or based on a degree of certainty based on the information that environmental agencies already have. Instead, REACH asks industry to work with government, scientists, policy experts and NGOs to exercise precaution.

Beginning June 2007, 150,000 substances were registered in the REACH-IT database housed in Finland.

The formation of this data-base is calling on a unique pattern of networking that effects the work of anyone engaged in managing the reduction of use or impact of toxic chemicals reducing effecting the environment and health of people.

The development of the SIN List addresses a very important pattern in the scientific global community. REACH/SIN is pushing the formation of a new scientific research agenda based on the need for the public to know what is of potential harm to their health and the environment.

The process of generation of this list and the collaboration and forums that generate this activity is an example of a culture of change that is replacing the past 40+ years of dissent and protest that was an outgrowth of the reaction which occurred in the 1960’s when Rachel Carson published her book, Silent Spring.

While this kind of dissent was a vehicle out of which to build an understanding of the Earth Charter in Action , it has not been a vehicle for educating and giving public, industry, public health officials and legislators forums in which to learn what they need to know to act with timely response to do their jobs.

Debbie Raphael and Meg Schwarzman have shown what can grow out of a conversation based in intelligence to open a new forum of education. This forum is now an educational outreach for many people in that will help them improve their ability to do their jobs and be responsive to the issues and challenges that surround everyone today with respect to the environment and health.